a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method which is particularly adapted for people and families who have elected a home based educational program, and more particularly to such a system and method which provides active connecting links between the established educational institutions (such as school districts) and those who have elected not to have their children attend (or being involved with) the established educational institution, but would rather do xe2x80x9chome schooling.xe2x80x9d
b) Background Information
The tradition of home education has been with us for millenniums. It began with the family or family units teaching their offspring the basic knowledge and skills for survival and accomplishing their day to day chores. History records that the concept of formal education took root about 3000 BC when the Sumarians (who lived in the Tigris/Euphrates valley) and the Egyptians each invented a writing system. This made possible the beginning of schools as we know them today. The schools which were established in Egypt were for the very few.
Probably the most significant educational advances in early Western History were made in Greece (particularly in Athens) from about 700 BC to about 300 BC. One of the luminaries (Socrates) who taught in Greece and employed an informal method of education which has been come to be known as xe2x80x9cPeripatetic Method.xe2x80x9d The term xe2x80x9cperipateticxe2x80x9d means xe2x80x9cwalking about place to place; traveling on foot,xe2x80x9d and Aristotle conducted his discussions by walking about in the Lyceum of ancient Athens. After being condemned to death in 399 BC for impiety and corrupting the young men of Athens (a little over 70 years of age), his basic teachings were carried on by Plato and then Aristotle.
During that time, Athenian education made substantial advances, but for early education, rather than establish a school, a trusted family slave took the students from teacher to teacher, each who specialized in a certain subject or related subjects. This continued until they were about fifteen years of age, and from ages sixteen to twenty they attended a government sponsored xe2x80x9cgymnasiumxe2x80x9d where they were trained to be citizen/soldiers.
By the year 300 BC Greece became the acknowledged center of culture and education and many of the early Romans would send their children to Greece for education. As Rome became dominant from between 100 BC and 100 AD, Roman education flourished. After the fall of Rome and during the Middle Ages up until about 1500 in Western civilization the education was accomplished primarily by the Christian clergy.
Probably the greatest catalyst for education was Gutenberg""s invention of movable type which made the modern printing press possible. This enabled books to be printed in large quantities which made formal education available for a large number of people.
By the late 1700""s, in Europe there was a more of a nationalistic trend in education, and much the responsibility for education was transferred from the clergy. A number of European countries (Great Britain being an exception) adopted state controlled educational systems.
In the United States, shortly after the Revolutionary War, there was also a growing concern that public education should be provided. One of the main objectives was to give Americans common goals and a sense of national unity. In the 1800""s, there was debate in the U.S. as to whether public funds could be used to support secondary schools. In a landmark decision of 1874, the Michigan Supreme Court settled the issue to legalize the practice that public funds could be used to support secondary education.
As we moved into the twentieth century, the concept of publicly funded schooling had become well entrenched in our education system. In the first half of the twentieth century, public education was almost entirely in the domain of the individual states. Subsequent to World War II, however, the federal government began taking a more active role. One of the major reasons was the funding of the GI bill and also enlarging the educational opportunities of veterans. In 1965 the elementary and secondary education act was passed by the U.S. congress, to furnish school districts with funds to help education children from low income families. In more recent years, the federal government has become more active and adopted certain standards and quite often federal funding for education is contingent on adopting xe2x80x9cand adhering toxe2x80x9d certain standards.
For some time now, rather than an elementary education up to a certain grade level being considered a xe2x80x9cbenefitxe2x80x9d that should be provided for children, it has now become a requirement. As indicated above, some aspects of state funded education is controlled by the Federal government by setting certain standards, but much of the detailed planning for a basic curricula is done at the state and local level. Thus, while there are many options in the course of obtaining a basic education, there are requirements that certain basics be taught.
In recent years, particularly in the last decade or two, there have developed different views about what children should be taught and how they should be taught, and also who is ultimately responsible for the task. Thus, there has developed a growing number of families nationwide (approaching ten percent of the general population) who choose to educate their children at home (home schoolers). Over the past ten years, there has developed a philosophical and tolerance gap between two groups, namely:
a) those who support the traditional K-12 public school system as we know it, varying little from state to state throughout the nation;
b) the growing number of people who chose to educate their children at home.
Each group can point to myriad of successes and failures, claim to offer a far better prospective success than the other. The home schoolers can point to such things that the public schools face more and more incidents of violence, poor performance of students and nationwide teacher shortages. On the other hand, the teaching profession can take justifiable pride in its skill and accomplishments.
Accordingly, it is a major object of the present invention to provide a cooperative system and methods by which the established educational institutions can work cooperatively with the xe2x80x9chome schoolersxe2x80x9d to enhance the educational opportunities of the children who are in home schooling situations and to accomplish this in such a way as to meet the needs of all those involved. To state this another way, this system of the present invention is to xe2x80x9cblendxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cconnectxe2x80x9d these two now separate systems and to accomplish the goals of each in a way that preserves the educational benefits provided by each system separately.
The system of the present of the present invention provides education needs for home schooling, where there exists:
a) a School District which operates at least one school, with students enrolled in, and attending class in, the school;
b) a plurality of Home School Units, each Home School Unit comprising at least one parent and one student who is being home schooled by the parent.
The system incorporates with the School District and with the Home School Units, a Home School Program Center to accomplish various functions. Basic functions relating to the Home School Program Center and the Home School Units include the following:
i. accomplishing enrollment of students of the Home School Units in the School District;
ii. the Home School Program Center maintaining school records of classes completed and credits earned to qualify the students of the home school units with full accreditation and credit for the classes completed and also as having graduated from the school district if such students have met the requirements of the School District for graduation;
iii. establishing individual learning programs for students;
iv. the Home School Program Center providing the basic equipment and materials (e.g. text, curricular materials, computers and other communication equipment along with other equipment as needed); and
v. the Home School Program Center and the Home School Units accomplishing the proper testing at the benchmark points so that the courses taken by the student are properly certified by the School District.
Further, the Home School Program Center accomplishes certain functions with the School District, namely:
i. coordination in initially enrolling the students and following tasks in maintaining the enrollment;
ii. coordination and maintaining all the necessary records for that student and taking care of all other procedural matters and giving proper accreditation for all classes completed and graduating the students with the proper credits and credentials;
iii. coordination in providing educational services, equipment and materials as requested from the Home School Program Center for the Home School Units.
In addition to the functions relating to the Home School Program Center and the Home School Units, as indicated above, in a preferred form the system comprises one or more functions selected from the following group, namely:
i. initial contact between the home school units and the home school program center;
ii. continuing periodic communications between an assigned certified teacher and the home school units, as reasonably required by the ILP of each unit;
iii. counseling services by the way of problem solving, trouble shooting, and meeting special needs, provided for the home school units;
iv. providing additional educational help, programs and material as needed to accomplish the ILP of each home schooling unit (either from the school district or other private resources);
v. monitoring progress of various individual learning programs of the various students.
The system further comprises one or more Field Representatives for the Home School Units. This Field Representative would desirably be a person (or persons if more than one representative) having a reasonable balance of skill and/or experience in home schooling to coordinate with the Home School Units and the Home School Program to facilitate home schooling.
Also, in the preferred embodiment of the system, there are one or more parent advisory groups, made up from the Home School Units which meet to discuss goals, problems, possible improvements, and/or other matters relevant to activities of the Home School Units and the Home School Program Center.
In the Method of the present invention, there is established a cooperative program to enhance home schooling where there is an existing School District, and also a plurality of Home School Units, as described above. This program is accomplished by following the steps which are recited above as functions of the system. These and other features of the present invention will be described more fully in the following text.